TOP 100 DJS PROFILE: ARMIN VAN BUUREN

Armin Van Buuren is one of the most successful DJs of all time. He has hit the Top 100 DJs No.1 spot on a record five occasions, and created a global movement around his beloved trance sound. He remains the highest ranking trance DJ in the 2014 poll, and No.13 in the world - not a bad place to be at all...

“I’m blessed you know. I’m totally blessed. You have to imagine there’s millions of DJs out there and everybody wants to be a DJ,” Dutch demi- god Armin Van Buuren tells us when asked how come he always looks so happy. “So I’m blessed. I’m blessed with this life. I’m blessed to be talking to you. I’m blessed to get so much recognition from so many fans around the world. That’s how I feel about it. Blessed. There’s no better words.”

OK, so many people would like to be a DJ, but not so many people can do it in the way that he does. His Armin Only tour takes 35 people as part of its entourage, including a theatre director, trapeze artists, dancers, singers and musicians, and is the current state of play for the State Of Trance hero. “I just went from A to B to C to D to E. To be honest with you, there was no planning behind all this. Sometimes it was, ‘OK let’s try this’.”

Selling out Amsterdam’s enormous Ziggo Dome several times over is something Armin is uber proud of. That and taking the tour across the world, receiving a Grammy nomination for ‘This Is What It Feels Like’, switching from Ibiza’s Privilege to Ushuaia, and continuing to produce the wow factor with his State Of Trance gatherings.

Armin points out that his ‘Ping Pong’ hit started out as a bit of a joke in the lead up to planning his Armin Only show. “It’s just a fun moment in the show. And it turned out to be one of the biggest moments of the show. That’s the irony of life,” he tells us.

“’I put all the house music cliches into that one track, I’ve been producing and DJing for over 15 years, and all the cliches are in there, but people shouldn’t take that track too seriously.”

Keeping the burn going, this year Armin is working on two albums. An ‘Armin Anthems’ release, which he has asked his fans to suggest their favourites for, and also his sixth full artist album. In this instance his social media has been hinting at collaborations with Trevor Horn, Seal and Jean Michel Jarre. “Dot, dot, dot... I wish I could tell you, but we don’t have contracts, there isn’t a finished song, it’s more likely that it won’t happen than it will. But who’s to say that’s going to end up on the album? There’s a lot of lawyers involved.”